Experimental respiratory infection of goats with caprine herpesvirus and Pasteurella haemolytica

Abstract

Groups of six male goats were inoculated intratracheally and intranasally with either caprine herpesvirus followed 6 days later by Pasteurella haemolyticu, cape herpesvirus alone or P. haemolytica alone.

Pneumonic lesions were observed in five of the six goats inoculated with caprine herpesvirus followed by P. haemolytica and in three of the six goats inoculated with P. haemolytica alone, but were not observed in goats inoculated with caprine herpesvirus alone or in non-infected controls. Pasteurella haemolytica was isolated from seven of eight lungs with pneumonia, but only from one of sixteen lungs without pneumonia. The lesions ranged from fatal acute exudative necrotising pneumamia to predominantly proliferative pneumonia. Half of the caprine herpesvirus-inoculated goatS developed a clinical catarrhal rhinitis five days post-inoculation and the only virus-specific histopathologicall lesion was a mild tracheitis. Cape herpesvirus was recovered from the nasal swabs of all ccaprine herpesvirus-inoculated goats and from the lungs of three goats inoculated with caprine herpesvirus alone.

The experimental inoculations demonstrated that P. haemolytica alone can produce pneumonia in goats. In addition, the study showed that caprine herpesvirus readily proliferates in the upper respiratory tract and lungs of goats but the role of caprine herpesvirus in the aetiology of pneumonia remains uncertain.